“The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

I'm sure you've already heard about this but just in case you missed it, here's what Theresa Heinz-Kerry's personal gigolo had to say about the men and women serving in our military...

“You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

Now I'll admit that the military is a last-resort option for some kids who don't possess the maturity or discipline for college, but that's not the reason for a majority of enlistees to sign up. That being said, this statement by John Kerry illustrates what most Democrats think about the military. They loathe the American military and view it as the source of all evil in the modern world.

The media always report on the violence on the part of unassimilated Muslim youths around the world, while never reporting that they are Muslim youths. Read this news article reported by the AP and see how many times the word Muslim is intentionally left out. ("Muslim" in orange is by me)...

MARSEILLE, France (AP) - France's interior minister sent riot police to patrol the southern port city of Marseille on Sunday after a group of marauding Muslim teenagers torched a bus, gravely burning a young woman.French police braced for violence this weekend, the anniversary of last year's riots in poor neighborhoods where Muslim immigrants from former French colonies in Africa live with their French-born children on the fringes of society.On Saturday, 46 people were taken into custody, most of them in the Muslim communities around Paris, and two police officers were slightly injured. The most serious violence was the brutal bus attack in Marseille.A group of young Muslim people burst onto the bus and tossed in a bottle of flammable liquid before fleeing, police said, citing witnesses' accounts. The resulting fire injured a 26-year-old woman, who suffered second- and third-degree burns on her arms, legs and face and was in a medically induced coma on Sunday.President Jacques Chirac telephoned the woman's family, ensuring them that France would "do everything to find the assailants and punish them with the greatest severity," his office said.Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin called a meeting for Monday on public transport safety, while Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy's office said he was sending two extra companies of riot police to Marseille. Bus drivers in Marseille refused to return to work.Though Muslim youths have burned other buses during flare-up of violence, passengers have generally escaped before the vehicles went up in flames. Another bus was burned Saturday in Trappes, outside Paris, but its passengers fled unharmed, police said.The three weeks of rioting by Muslims last year were fueled by anger at France's failure to offer equal chances to many minorities, including France's 5 million-strong Muslim population.(aha, they got one)The rioting was sparked by the deaths of two Muslim teenagers who were electrocuted in a power substation in Clichy-sous-Bois on Oct. 27, 2005, where they were hiding after what they thought was a police chase.For the anniversary of the teens' deaths, national police said about 4,000 extra police and riot officers were deployed across the country to cope with a possible resurgence of violence. Some 7,000 police are at the ready on an average night in France.Aside from the bus attack in Marseille, the Interior Ministry said that both Friday and Saturday night were "relatively calm." Muslim youths set fire to about 200 vehicles Saturday, police said. But even on ordinary nights, the number of cars burned often reaches 100.France's trouble integrating Muslim minorities and the unrest in poor neighborhoods have become political priorities in the campaign for next year's presidential and parliamentary elections.The government passed an equal opportunities law this spring and has poured in funds to its "sensitive" areas, but disenchantment among Muslims continues.

Look how differently and clearly the article reads with "Muslim" included in the appropriate places. Are we so politically correct now that criminals cannot be identified by what they are? If these were Christian youths who were rioting, the media would certainly report on them as such without hesitation. This is why you must get your news from multiple sources. The mainstream media cannot be relied on to report the facts as they are. They will protect those with whose politics they agree, and villify those they oppose politically...not exactly the "free press" the founding fathers had in mind is it?

UPDATE: I first posted the above on Sunday. Lest you think I am alone in my observations, here's Neal Boortz ranting about this same thing Monday morning in his "reading assignments" section on his web site...

They're Muslims! The rioters in France were and are Muslims! I repeat ... Muslims! Why the hell can't the media at least admit that much! Read this story from Brietbart.com .... not once in the entire story is the word "Muslim" or "Islam" mentioned. We get references to "African decent" and "Arabs" .. but not once are the rioters identified for who and what they are ... MUSLIMS! Western culture is at war, dammit ... and they're being goaded into this violence by Muslim leaders. Wake up, folks. It's high time we recognize the enemy.

Just in case you were considering one of those very attractive private-parts piercings, you might want to read this first...

CRAWFORDSVILLE, Ind. (AP) - A teenager who decided to get her breasts pierced for her 18th birthday faces reconstructive surgery after a flesh-destroying infection forced doctors to remove her left breast.Stephanie Edington of Crawfordsville remained hospitalized Friday at the Indiana University Medical Center in Indianapolis, where surgeons also removed lymph nodes and infected skin up to her collar bone.

Now I'll have to admit there's something vaguely appealing and exotic about adornment piercings on the right person, but seriously, what's the point given the pain and risk involved? I just don't get the current piercing and tattoo rage. What does it prove? Somebody enlighten me.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

A Muslim cleric's claim that women who do not wear the veil are like 'uncovered meat' who attract sexual predators sparked outrage around Australia yesterday.Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali, the nation's most senior Muslim cleric, compared immodestly-dressed women who do not wear the Islamic headdress with meat that is left uncovered in the street and is then eaten by cats.

So, under Sharia law, practiced by some believers in the Religion of Peace, if you get raped and you are dressed improperly, you had it coming. Sharia law recognizes that men can be enticed into raping women and that it's womens' responsibility to not invite a rape by leaving their ankles uncovered. And liberal governments around the world are bending over backwards to embrace Islam...why?

And where is Gloria Steinem? I realize she's America's only remaining feminists but shouldn't she be outraged? And where's the New York Times' outrage? And where, oh where are the supposed moderate Muslim leaders around the world to say that Islam doesn't condone rape?

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

By popular demand (actually just Reid) I want to open a thread for SEC football opinion. I'll start it off...

First the Dogs -- I realize there's a QB problem at Georgia, but explain the league-leading 22 dropped passes, the inability of small-armed defensive backs to make open-field tackles or correct reads, the miserable protection offered by the O-line, or the disastrous play selections in critical situations( throwing in the flat for 4 yards on third and 13)??? No wonder Georgia and Mark Richt are the most disappointing team and coach respectively in the SEC. How does one lose to Vanderbilt? How does one barely manage to beat Ole Miss and Miss St.? How hot will his seat be when Richt loses the next three out of four games...Florida(L), Kentucky(who knows?), Auburn(L), GaTech(L). That'll be 5 losses on the season and another trip to the Poulan-Weedeater Independence Bowl...does that bowl even exist anymore? If we lose 5, we should do the honorable thing and not accept any bowl invitation.

Florida -- I used to enjoy my hatred for Florida when Spurrier was there but now it's just empty, unsatisfying hatred.

Bama -- The Tide will never achieve greatness as long as fans insist on having a Bear protoge' for coach. There are no more Bear protoge's. Shula wasn't really an attractive coach when they hired him, he was simply the only guy still in football who had ties to Bear Bryant. Clinging to a dead guy for 25 years is a pitiful strategy for running a big-time SEC football program.

Auburn -- It's my favorite game of the year. I like Auburn except when they play Georgia and even then I can enjoy watching the game with Tiger fans. In my experience, Auburn and Georgia fans don't hate each other, we just enjoy the rivalry. Georgia fans hate Florida and Tennessee. We're ambivalent about Bama, we don't play them enough.

LSU -- Jemarcus Russell is not as good as everybody thinks he is. The draft will show that.

Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Arkansas, Ole Miss, Miss St., SC -- who cares? They're second teir SEC teams and their respective situations matter not to anybody but the fans unfortunate enough to have attended school there.

Consider this an open thread to discuss any SEC topic you wish. If we get a lot if input, I'll repost the comments in their entirety each Wednesday leading up to Saturday's games.

Desperate Democrats can't get any more election-year traction against Republicans with the Foley story directly, so now they pretend what the priest did years ago somehow indicts Republicans...

MIAMI (AP) - Another former altar boy says he was sexually abused in the 1970s by the same retired Catholic priest who acknowledged fondling former Rep. Mark Foley when Foley was a teenager, the man's attorney said Wednesday.

This is pathetic! This former priest fondled Foley 30-40 years ago, and may have at some point fondled somebody else, also 30-40 years ago. SO WHAT? How does that rate as relevant news?

This perfectly illustrates what a political party, devoid of ideas, does in an effort to seize political power. They cannot tell you a reason to vote FOR them, only reasons to vote against Republicans.

OK people, the midterm elections are two weeks from today, and I know there are lots of reasons to stay home...

1. no candidates offering reasons to vote for them, only reasons not to vote for their opponents2. Republicans weak on border security3. Republicans spending like drunken Democrats4. Republicans increasing the size and scope of government5. Mark Foley6. American body count in Iraq7. civil war in Iraq8. the nuclear Norks9. the media's collective giddiness over the possibility of a Democrat take-over10. corruption from the Party who's supposed to be better than that (Democrat corruption is par for the course)

There are certainly more reasons to not have enthusiasm for Republicans. These are just what I could come up with on the fly. I'm one of those voters who if I can't think of a reason to vote FOR somebody, I'll stay home and not vote at all. That being said, this is one of those lesser-of-two-evils elections I hate.

What If Liberals Win Control Of The Congress?Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) take over majority control of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Liberals like Leahy, Ted Kennedy, Chuck Schumer, and Joseph Biden will set the agenda for who is placed on the Supreme Court and on federal district courts. They will effectively block anyone who believes in judicial restraint and respects the rule of law and the will of the American people.

If liberals take the Senate, imagine Senator Harry Byrd (D-WV) heading up the Senate Appropriations Committee. Byrd is one of the biggest pork-barrel spenders in history and never saw a tax hike he wouldn’t approve of.

Imagine what will happen to our national security if Senator John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV) takes control of the Senate Intelligence Committee?

Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has actually consulted with four college professors and scholars asking for their advice on whether or not President Bush should be impeached for the NSA surveillance program of suspected terrorists! (San Francisco Chronicle , December 24, 2005)

Imagine Senator John Kerry (D-MA) heading up the East Asian and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee, which handles policy issues involving North Korea! Or Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE) heading up the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee!A liberal-controlled Senate would be a disaster for domestic security; the war on terrorism; judicial reform; international relations; right to life; homosexual agenda; and religious freedom.

What If They Take The House Of Representatives? If liberals take the House in 2006 or 2008, radical pro-abortion Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) would become the House Majority Leader. She has alluded to the fact that if Democrats win the House, she might launch a series of investigations against the Bush Administration on the war on terror. She denies that she has plans to introduce impeachment proceedings, but her promises are essentially worthless.

If liberals gain the House, Michigan Rep. John Conyers will become head of the House Judiciary Committee.Conyers began urging that Bush be impeached as long ago as 2003.In addition, since 1989, Rep. Conyers has been pushing for legislation to create a federal commission designed to look in to reparations for slavery. The ultimate goal would be to siphon off millions of dollars from corporations or banks that may have been involved somehow in profiting from slavery that was ended by a Civil War 150 years ago.

If liberals take the House of Representatives, Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) will likely take over the House Intelligence Committee. Harman is pro-abortion and even issued a press release in 2005 calling for the confirmation of a pro-abortion Justice to the Supreme Court. She has also opposed passage of any constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union of one man and one woman.

Liberal Wisconsin Democrat David Obey will take over the House Appropriations Committee, one of the most powerful committees in the Congress. This committee also includes Jim Murtha, the anti-war and anti-Bush advocate from Pennsylvania. Obey has voted against a constitutional amendment protecting marriage; voted no to protect the Pledge of Allegiance; voted no to protect flag desecration; and has a consistent anti-life, pro-homosexual voting record. He has also voted no to permit the development of new oil refineries—thus helping keep us dependent on Arab oil.

If that doesn't paint a scary picture for the next two years, I don't know what does. And remember, 98% of incumbents seeking re-election, win. The Dem. majority would be hard to get rid of and could pave the way for Hillary's ascendancy to the Presidency.

What am I going to do on election day? I'm going to walk into the polling booth, hold my nose and pull the lever for conservatives and hope that they win.

"But Ed", you astutely point out, "won't the Republicans get the message that we approve of what they're doing if we reward them with re-election?" Yes, possibly they will but, I think it is better to try to get our own guys to do what we want, than to watch helplessly while the Democrats foist their dreadful, globalist liberalism on America.

DON'T STAY HOME ON ELECTION DAY...THAT'S WHAT THE LIBERALS ARE COUNTING ON---GO VOTE!

There are two identical pictures that will appear on the screen. Over 8000 people were tested to see if they could find the 3 differences and only 19 got it. See how observant you are and if you find all 3 differences, you are one of the most elite people in the world!

This is a satellite image showing the nighttime illumination of various regions of the globe. Look how bright America is...don't you love industrialization and progress? Too bad global-warming and conservationist alarmists don't see it that way...

BEIJING - Humans are stripping nature at an unprecedented rate and will need two planets' worth of natural resources every year by 2050 if current trends continue, according to a report published Tuesday by the World Wildlife Fund and the Global Footprint Network.

"For more than 20 years we have exceeded the Earth's ability to support a consumptive lifestyle that is unsustainable and we cannot afford to continue down this path," WWF Director-General James Leape said in releasing the 2006 Living Planet Report in Beijing.

"If everyone around the world lived as those in America, we would need five planets to support us," Leape added.

It's so typical of liberal bed-wetters to blame the successful for the failures of the fruitless. The reason America can support her population is because our fertility rate is around 2.1, barely above replacement rate. In places where population is outstripping resources, India, Africa, etc.., they are having 4-5 babies minimum per adult. They have multiple offspring when they cannot even afford to feed themselves. If liberals are so concerned about dwindling resources they should get the poor and unproductive to stop reproducing like rabbits. It's not an issue of conspicuous consumption in America, it's an issue of conspicuous reproduction in places that cannot support it.

Heaven forbid that people should be reminded of the possible consequences of their abysmal life decisions, or encouraged not to have babies they cannot afford. Why, that would be judgemental. It's never their own fault that they and their 12 children are destitute and hungry. It's the fault of people half way around the world who consume too much.

It's kind of ironic that this idiot from WWF is making this statement against the U.S. from Beijing. China has the world's largest population, the fastest growing economy, the most accelerated consumption of oil, no pollution standards or controls, and one of the worst human rights and civil rights records in the world. But as always with liberals, America is the source of all evil and suffering in the modern world.

HOUSTON - Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling, the most vilified figure from the most notorious financial scandal of the decade, was sentenced Monday to 24 years, four months in the harshest sentence yet in the case that came to symbolize corporate fraud in America.

Skilling, insisting he was innocent yet remorseful in a two-hour hearing, was the last top former official to be punished for the accounting tricks and shady business deals that led to the loss of thousands of jobs, more than $60 billion in Enron stock and more than $2 billion in employee pension plans when Enron collapsed.

For every corporate thief like Skilling, there are literally thousands of honest, hard-working, dedicated small business owners who are pursuing profit the same as Skilling and Ken Lay, only they're playing by the rules. It's a shame that guys like this give regular CEO's, and business in general, a bad name.

Other than Mark Richt NOT firing his defensive coordinator and receivers coach at Georgia, this is the stupidest idea I've heard all week...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration is handing out money for teachers who raise student test scores, the first federal effort to reward classroom performance with bonuses.Education Secretary Margaret Spellings planned to announce the first of 16 grants, worth $42 million, including $5.5 million for Ohio, on Monday. The government has not announced the other grant winners.Using the old-fashioned incentive of cash, President Bush's program encourages schools to set up pay scales that reward some teachers and principals more than others. Those rewards are to be based mainly on test scores, but also on classroom evaluations during the year.

This dumb scheme designed to make the Republicans appeal to the soccer-mom vote will do nothing to encourage teachers to teach. It will encourage teachers to give out the answers to the standardized tests. This is just a continuation of No Child Left Behind. Testing isn't the most important thing in childhood education, learning is.

Let schools compete for education tax dollars and I guarantee you actual learning will take place because parents will be the judges, not some soulless educrat in Washington writing politically correct standardized tests.

On Friday night, Hillary Clinton finally had to face an unscripted, uncontrolled media event — a debate with her feisty opponent John Spencer, the Republican candidate for Senator from New York this year.

Spencer pinned her ears back with his opening statement when he declared:"I am the only person here who really wants to be the Senator fromNew York . . . she wants to be President."And then he exploited the opening by reminding Hillary "you're not the President yet."

Hillary's not used to taking questions and challenges from anybody. She always has friendly members of the press to toss her softball questions she can hit out of the park, and she never does interviews unless it's scripted and she knows the questions in advance. She cannot control the media in a two-year presidential election run up and the challenging questions and debates will expose her as the craven, power-hungry, empty suit she is.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

FAYETTEVILLE, W.Va. (AP) - A parachutist who jumped to his death from a bridge during a festival when his chute opened too late was a retired police lieutenant and an outdoor enthusiast, a former colleague said.Brian Lee Schubert, 66, died of injuries suffered when he hit the water 876 feet below the New River Gorge Bridge during the annual Bridge Day festival on Saturday, said Fayette County Sheriff Bill Laird.Schubert, of Alta Loma, Calif., had been well known in the sport of BASE jumping since 1966, when he and a friend became the first people to jump from El Capitan, a nearly 3,000-foot-tall rock formation, in California's Yosemite National Park.The sport's acronym stands for the places jumpers usually leap from: buildings, antennae, spans and earth.Schubert retired from the Pomona, Calif., police department in 1989.Thousands of people witnessed the jump.Lew Whitener, a newspaper photographer covering the annual Bridge Day festival for the Register-Herald of Beckley, said it appeared Schubert's chute didn't start to open until he was about 25 feet above the water. The crowd gave a collective gasp, he said."It was everybody kind of held their breath then an eerie silence afterward. Everybody kind of looked at each other and said 'Wow,'" Whitener said.I think these crazy adrenaline junkies have to continually ratchet up the danger level to keep getting the risk-high. For BASE jumpers, apparently that means pulling the rip cord later and later in the jump. I guess 25 feet of altitude, approaching terminal velocity, is a tad late to deploy the chute.

TOKYO (AP) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Il told a Chinese envoy his regime has no immediate plans to carry out another nuclear test but whether it will do so in the future depends on U.S. policy toward his country, a news report said Sunday. The Norks decided not to test another newkular weapon this week after all. I don't think it has anything to do with the possibility of the U.S.'s concession to their demands of massive aid for the NoKo people. Bush hasn't indicated a willingness in that direction in any way. The Bush doctrine is spot-on, disarmament first, then talks.

Most agree that China is the key to all this. NoKo practically exists at the pleasure of the Chinese. Certainly the Chinese fear economic consequences and international condemnation if they don't rein in the pot-bellied, dog-eating dictator. I think Hu Jintao figured rightly that friendly trading relations with the U.S., and the rest of the free world, is worth more than supporting the crazy Norks. In addition, Japan and SoKo, to whom Jong Il has been openly hostile, hinted at the possibility of going nuclear if Jong Il was allowed to pursue weapons. The last thing the Chinese want is a nuclearized East Asia.

Look at this picture. Jong Il looks like an 8 year old, embarassed that he just had his fanny spanked by somebody...that somebody was China.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

WASHINGTON - The Republican Party will begin airing a hard-hitting ad this weekend that warns of more cataclysmic terror attacks against the U.S. homeland.

The ad portrays Osama bin Laden and quotes his threats against America dating to February 1998. "These are the stakes," the ad concludes. "Vote November 7."

Brian Jones, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said the ad would run on national cable beginning Sunday, but he declined to discuss specifics of the buy.

The commercial tracks with Republican Party strategy to make the war on terrorism a central theme of this election. It will air as recent polls show Republicans losing ground as the party best able to combat terrorism.Last month, President Bush made the war against terrorism a recurrent topic in public appearances. But his message was drowned out by the e-mail sex scandal involving former Republican Rep. Mark Foley of Florida and by increasing fatalities in Iraq.

The ad displays an array of quotes from bin Laden and his top lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, that include bin Laden's Dec. 26, 2001 vow that "what is yet to come will be even greater."

The ad is also featured on the RNC's Web site. The party said the ad, called "The Stakes," will be e-mailed to millions of GOP supporters, activists and the state parties.

Look, it may technically be true that the Republicans are better at fighting terrorists and defending this country than the namby pamby globalist Democrats but, the message will be missed because it will look like sneaky, 11th hour, election trickeration. It comes across like Johnny Cochran's last minute race-card trick in the OJ trial. Scaring Americans into voting for Republicans is the wrong way to go about getting re-elected. If the Democrats bring it up, that's different, but American voters don't like the smell of desperation in a political Party and I predict the firestorm of negative press this move draws will keep conservative voters home. It just doesn't look like the move of a Party that expects to win.

With the right to his own name affirmed by a judge recently, Juice has decided to cash in on his adventure...

O.J. Simpson is confessing. Hypothetically, that is.

The former football great, who was acquitted in criminal court 11 years ago of killing his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman, reportedly has been paid a whopping $3.5 million to write about the double murder that shocked and riveted the nation in 1994, according to a detailed report in the new National Enquirer.

But Simpson is not actually confessing to the murder — rather, he’s writing a “hypothetical” book — which the Enquirer reports is tentatively being called “If I Did It.”

What always struck me as surreal is the racial divide this case exposed: 9 out of 10 whites believed O.J. got away with 2 counts of cold-blooded murder, and 9 out of 10 blacks thought he did it too, but were glad he got off. What's up with that?

I wonder if he'll address in his book, the ongoing hunt for the real killer on Florida's public golf courses.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Over the summer I had a hysterectomy, and um, I got my “parts” back. I thought I could just [inaudible] on eBay, you know, “[inaudible] Cindy Sheehan’s uterus.” And so I planted it in the garden where the bush, it’s a pretty bush… It’s so funny ’cause me and my children, we’ll always be a part of, of Crawford, Texas. Long after people forgot the horror of the Bush regime, long after, you know, we’re forgotten. We’ll always, our DNA will always be in the land…”

Seriously, I just vomited in my mouth! Excuse me while I poke my mind's eye with a sharp stick.

I hope you don't mind that I threw in the muffin-top pic. I did it for no reason other than to add certain disgust to your heaving nausea.

With most of the Katrina refugees still living in Houston, the floods there may cause problems...

HOUSTON – Severe thunderstorms with torrential rains and a possible tornado hit Southeast Texas overnight, killing two people, flooding roads and shutting down numerous schools Monday.As much as 10 inches of rain fell in the Houston-Galveston area. More rain was expected across Texas on Monday, with the possibility of damaging winds and flooding, the National Weather Service said.

Don't be surprised if you hear of some trouble in Houston during all this....after all, looting, shooting, and cannabilism are natural, human responses to urban flooding aren't they?

Only liberals believe they can cram their garbage down the throats of Americans while bypassing the laws of supply and demand......turns out, they can't.

Air America Radio, a liberal talk and news radio network that features the comedian Al Franken, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, a network official told The AP.The network had denied rumors just a month ago that it would file for bankruptcy. On Friday, Air America spokeswoman Jaime Horn told The Associated Press that the filing became necessary only recently after negotiations with a creditor from the company's early days broke down.

All radio programs establish themselves by starting off in a small, limited market and gaining listenership. As popularity increases, advertising revenue increases. This is how ALL radio shows become established.

Air America started out huge, expecting instant mass listenership but, it turns out nobody listens to Air America's show-hosts' liberal diatribes. No advertisers wanted to buy ad time because nobody listens. No advertisers = no income stream. No income stream = no revenue..and no revenue means Chapter 11.

I love when the marketplace stomps on the dreams of liberals, exposing them to be the failures they are.

The future of the EU is not bright. I borrowed this snipet from a piece by Mark Steyn...

“Replacement” fertility rate—i.e., the number you need for merely a stable population, not getting any bigger, not getting any smaller—is 2.1 babies per woman. Some countries are well above that: the global fertility leader, Somalia, is 6.91, Niger 6.83, Afghanistan 6.78, Yemen 6.75. Notice what those nations have in common?

Scroll way down to the bottom of the Hot One Hundred top breeders and you’ll eventually find the United States, hovering just at replacement rate with 2.07 births per woman. Ireland is 1.87, New Zealand 1.79, Australia 1.76. But Canada’s fertility rate is down to 1.5, well below replacement rate; Germany and Austria are at 1.3, the brink of the death spiral; Russia and Italy are at 1.2; Spain 1.1, about half replacement rate. That’s to say, Spain’s population is halving every generation. By 2050, Italy’s population will have fallen by 22 percent, Bulgaria’s by 36 percent, Estonia’s by 52 percent.

These fertility rates apply to the indigenous population. Take a look at the average fertility rates for ethnic Muslems in these countries(5-6 offspring per woman) and you'll see that in the next 4-5 generations, Muslems of Arabic desent will constitute a majority in some of these countries. Once that tipping point is reached, you may see some form of Sharia law get established in a European country perhaps in our lifetime.

Old Europe is plagued with obsessive political correctness and secular progressive Socialism. Both allow massive numbers of unassimilated immigrants to exist among the native population, even going so far as changing local law to appease the sensibilities of the foreigners. Combine that with the rapidly declining native population and you have the formula for cultural suicide.

The U.S. can look to Europe to see how not to manage unassimilated, ethnic minority immigrants.

Monday, October 16, 2006

As an entertainer, Madonna is a loathsome waste of clean air. That being said, what is all the fuss about her adotping a child from Africa? The criticism is that she's taking the kid away from his family or that she's just using her celebrity status and money to "buy" a child. First of all, the kid's mother is dead and the father says he can't take care of him anyway. As for the buying-the-kid criticism...so what? Americans do foreign adoptions by the thousands every year and every single one of those babies is "bought" by the parents. There's no other way to describe the extortion that takes place in China, Russia, Guatamala and other countries who demand that adotpive parents spend many days in local hotels, exorbitant adoption "processing" fees, legal fees for who knows what, and many expensive plane trips back and forth from America. Foreign adoptions can cost 20-30 thousand dollars. Tell me that's not buying a baby. If Madonna can give this kid a chance at a decent life, good for her.

Personally, I think she's jealous of the attention Angelina Jolie gets and she just wants to be back in the spotlight. To celebrities, kids are just like pets or the latest Prada bag. They are just a temporary novelties to be paraded around for the paparazzi, but regardless of her motives, she seems to be a decent parent. I would argue that being a celebrity's novelty attention getter in America is better than a life of hoplessness, disease, and despair in Africa.

Madonna may be adopting this kid for the wrong reasons but he will be guaranteed a better life...I don't have a problem with that. For once, I think people should get off her back.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

This story from England was reported as a serious news story but I found it to be hilarious...because I am cynical, insensitive, and I find humor in the misfortune of others. (emphasis on the funny parts is mine)

A nurse has spoken of her terror after she was attacked by a giant pig which charged the horse she was riding and then savaged her after she was thrown to the ground.Suffering from broken ribs from the fall, Carolyn Robinson feared for her life as the enraged pig hurtled at her.The ferocious beast, which she describes as "huge", mauled the 51 year old and snapped at her legs as she tried desperately to fight it off while lying prone in a quiet country lane.The pig was eventually driven off by Mrs Robinson's worried teenage daughter, with the help of passers-by.Animal experts say the attack could have been deadly as pigs have been known to become violent if they feel under threat or when protecting a food source or their young.The animal is believed to still be on the loose in Hampshire's New Forest and police are urging people to be cautious and report any threatening pig incidents.

This story could just as easily have been written about an attack from an English soccer hooligan, or roadside bandit. Reread the story as if the perp were a person.

If you don't laugh out loud, there's something seriously wrong with you.

Friday, October 13, 2006

While the earliest snow in the last century blankets Detroit, Chicago, and other parts of the midwest, Al Gore continues to complain about global warming. That's funny enough, but Al doesn't stop there embarassing himself. It seems the Norks' nuclear bomb test was a dud because they used polluted, impure plutonium. Al is not upset about the Norks testing nuclear weapons, he's upset that they used impure nuclear fuel to do it, complaining that it contributes to global warming.

Global thermonuclear war doesn't bother Al apparently, but using impure plutonium to test bombs does? How has he avoided institutionalization this long? The longer he remains in the forefront of the Democratic Party, the better it is for conservatives.

I posted this back in June but with all that is going on with North Korea lately, I thought I would put this link back up...it's really interesting. Take a few minutes and check it out.

I came across this site this afternoon. From what I can tell, it's the photographic account of a Russian national on holiday in North Korea. Not much of a holiday, but I would love to go there with a camera. As you can tell by his captions, most of the photographs would have been otherwise prohibited but he managed to get lots anyway.

Check it out. There are about 8-9 pages of photographs of the most depressing place you can ever imagine living. One caption accurately describes N.K. as being a perfect copy of the 1950's and it's right. That's how backward and behind this country is. The best thing that could ever happen to this God-forsaken, waste-land of humanity, culture, inspiration, hope, and progress is somebody should overthrow Kim Jong Il...this country is totally decimated and is surely on the verge of totol collapse. It's nothing but a shell of a society. You can see the bleak hopelessness and despair on the faces and even in the postures of the people in the pictures.

I knew it was bad over there but these pictures give you a whole new appreciation of the freedoms we enjoy here.

"Actor" Alec Baldwin trying to intimidate an officer into letting him cross a police cordon at the site of the plane crash in NYC yesterday.

Where do these Hollywood types get off thinking they are special? That the rules aren't for them? Look how in-your-face he is with this cop...pointing his finger and lecturing. I wish the cop had popped him in the mouth one time with his night stick--that would have shut him up...for once.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

LOS ANGELES - A 28-year-old Californian who joined al-Qaida and appeared in propaganda videos for the terrorist organization was indicted Wednesday on federal charges of treason and aiding terrorists, a U.S. Justice Department official said.

A grand jury returned the indictment against Adam Yehiye Gadahn, 28, a suspected al-Qaida operative sought by the FBI since 2004, said the official, who asked to remain anonymous because the indictment was to be announced later in the day.

Gadahn, who is believed to be in or near Pakistan, is believed to have attended the terrorist group’s training camps in Pakistan and served as one of its translators. He has become known by his nom de guerre Azzam al-Amriki, or “Azzam the American.”

What a scumbag! We'll catch him at some point (that is if he is man enough not to kill himself once cornered).

What's the means of execution for treason? Is it still "hanging by the neck until dead"? Firing squad? How were the Rosenbergs executed?

Small fixed wing plane crashes into high-rise apartment building in NYC. Nation's liberals scramble to figure out how to blame Karl Rove for orchestrating the crash to draw attention away from Bush's failed Iraq policies, the Mark Foley page scandle, and the North Korea crisis.

The Japanese aren't waiting around for the U.N. to ride to the rescue...

TOKYO (AP) - Saying the country was "in gravest danger," Japan ordered a total ban on North Korean imports late Wednesday and declared that ships from the impoverished nation were prohibited from entering Japanese ports as punishment for its apparent nuclear test.North Korean nationals are also prohibited from entering Japan, with limited exceptions, the Cabinet Office said in a statement released after an emergency security meeting.Twenty-four North Korea-registered trade ships were moored at Japanese ports as of Wednesday afternoon, according to public broadcaster NHK. Local traders were already refusing to unload shipments to protest the alleged test, and the boats were expected to be ordered out, NHK said."Japan is in gravest danger, if we consider that North Korea has advanced both its missile and nuclear capabilities," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters following the meeting."We cannot tolerate North Korea's actions if we are to protect Japanese lives and property," he said. "These measures were taken to protect the peace."Abe added the government will swiftly implement the measures, which were to be formally approved by the Cabinet on Friday.

I don't blame them. The crazy Norks are in their back yard. China isn't going to do anything because they know if life gets any tougher in NoKo, there will be a flood of millions of refugees trying to get into China. SoKo isn't going to do anything, the NoKo army could easily overrun the SoKo's across the DMZ. Russia isn't going to do anything, Pootie Poot is busy killing off his critics in the media. What's the incompetent U.N. going to do...threaten NoKo with a harshly worded rebuke? The U.S. isn't going to do anything either. We're not even sure he detonated a nuke...it may have just been a really big pile of TNT designed to feel like a nuke to the seismic sensors. The Japanese are sitting right there within easy missile range of NoKo and feeling very vulnerabe right about now.

I saw them on the news this morning flying the stew out of their F-15's...just in case. It just occured to me, Japan hasn't been in a shooting war since WWII has it? I'm not pulling for war but I'd like to see the Japanese in action...just to see what they've got.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Mexico is desperate to keep their poverty flowing north and our dollars flowing south...

PARIS -- Mexico's foreign secretary said Monday the country may take a dispute over U.S. plans to build a fence on the Mexican border to the United Nations.

Luis Ernesto Derbez told reporters in Paris, his first stop on a European tour, that a legal investigation was under way to determine whether Mexico has a case.

Our government's first and only priority is to defend the country from threats both foreign and domestic, and if 10million unassimilated, indigents flowing across our border doesn't constitute an invasion, I don't know what does. We should not care one bit what the U.N. thinks. They hate us anyway. We should build the fence along the entire southern border and then negotiate with Mexico about some idiotic worker program from a position strength.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Members of the U.N. Security Council condemned North Korea's claim of a nuclear test and demanded during an emergency meeting Monday that it return to six-party talks on its weapons program, Japan's U.N. ambassador said.

The Security Council will now discuss "appropriate measures" to respond to the test, which was a threat to international peace and security, Ambassador Kenzo Oshima said. President Bush said North Korea has "defied the will of the international community," and that the action "deserves an immediate response" by the U.N. Security Council.

There were conflicting reports on the size of the blast in northeast North Korea. South Korea said it was relatively small, while Russia said it had been perhaps as powerful as the nuclear bombs the U.S. dropped on Japan during World War II.

The explosion prompted worldwide concern it could seriously destabilize the region, and even Pyongyang's ally China said it strongly opposed the move. South Korea's spy chief said there were possible indications the North was moving to conduct more tests.

Congressional democrats and Bush-loathing liberals(but I repeat myself) have been salivating at the prospect of regaining power in the wake of the Mark Foley page scandal. SanFranNan Pelosi has even been making statements pondering the need of a woman to run things in Washington to straighten things out. Now, the freaky gargoyle in North Korea, Kim Jong-ll, has allegedly tested a nuclear weapon underground and focused the attention of the world across the Pacific, making the creepy congressman/ gay page scandal seem sort of silly by comparison.

Moreover, Bush now has a golden opportunity to lead the free world in doing whatever is appropriate in dealing with NoKo. (As I write this, the U.N. security council is meeting in emergency session.) If Bush can demonstrate compellingly to the American electorate that the world is a dangerous place, that we are at risk from multiple evils, and that Republicans can be trusted to keep us safe, and by virtue of the fact that the Democrats will not be able to help themselves in criticizing whatever Bush does, Americans will see their inability and unwillingness to deal harshly with threats to the U.S. That'll play well into the hands of republicans in November.

Monday, October 09, 2006

I just got back from seeing Sheryl Crowe and John Mayer...excellent concert!

When I go see a concert, I like to hear alternate versions of studio songs. I'd rather not hear the radio version. I appreciate an artist more if he/she can change a song up live, and it still be a good song. Like take a song heavy on electric guitar and perform it with different timing and go acoustic. Or throw in a long drum or guitar solo that nobody's ever heard on the radio. It shows that the artist/band hasn't stopped creating and isn't just playing out the string of concerts mandated by the record company. That being said...

Sheryl did a particularly good job with Every Day is a Winding Road and her jammed-up version of Steve McQueen was awesome!

John Mayer really showed his Stevie Ray Vaughn influences as almost every song had an extended blues guitar session. He did a hard, extended instrumental section during Why Georgia, my favorite of his songs.

I've got to get the new CD, Continuum. I hear it's pretty good. Has anybody heard it yet?

Of course the music is the basis of your concert enjoyment but the side-shows are part of the whole experience too. If you go to concerts much you'll know what I'm talking about. Two rows in front of us sat the ever-present girls-night-out trio who dance together the whole night and never sit down. Then there was the relationship-drama couple who probably didn't see half the concert because of their particular crisis. Then of course behind us and to the right were the lesbian bunch whose constant making out with each other created quite the distracting spectacle for those around them. And finally the pair of couples who sat in front of us who couldn't decide who got to sit next to whom and changed seats constantly so they could talk to each other.

I just read the review of Bush's statement regarding NoKo. He said the "international community will respond". My question is, how? Isolate them? -- They couldn't be more isolated if they were on the moon. Starv them with a naval blockade? -- Starving North Koreans envy the Ethiopian diet. You can't starv people who're already hungry. Bomb them back to the stone-age? -- They're already there. Seriously, what can the U.N. do besides do what it always does in response to a crisis...write a strongly worded letter?

Kim Jong-Il wants to sit down to two-party talks with the U.S. to discuss his intent to raid the U.S. national treasury for all he can get. It's simple extortion and wait, peace-at-any-cost liberals will cite the starving citizenry as a reason to grant him an audience with the president. Liberals will magnanimously demand that the U.S. taxpayer fork over billions to help the NoKo economy and it's people...for humanitarian purposes. The complicit, liberal media will portray Bush as an evil, meany who doesn't care for his fellow Earth citizens and probably at some point, he'll cave and do some sort of deal which rewards Kim Jong-Il's extortion plot.

With the Mark Foley disaster and the continuing Iraq quagmire threatening to tip the electoral scales in favor of Democrats in November, conservatives are wondering what we can expect for the next two years. What will Washington be like with a Republican president and at least one house of Congress controlled by Democrats? People are asking how anything will get accomplished when there is more partisan-based division than evere before. Well, here's what's good about the situation in which Bush veto's any spending bill the Dem's send across his desk and the Democrats refuse to allow a vote on any initiative of Bush's...GRIDLOCK!

That's right folks, gridlock is good! Think about it, no possibility of a disastrous amnesty for illegal aliens bill, no new spending of Americans' tax dollars, pressure to start winding things up in Iraq, Democrats being forced to show their hand when is comes to court nominations, Charlie Rangel holding impeachment hearings(disaster for Dems), Republicans finally recognizing that failure to stick to conservative principles means loss of power. With Washington gridlock, there are never new laws passed, which means no further restrictions on freedom and liberty of Americans...that's a good thing.

I'm not pulling for a Dem takeover of the House but if it happens, there is a bright side to be found.

Friday, October 06, 2006

Combine the appearance of hypocricy regarding the Foley scandal with this treacherous fence bill and the Republicans might very well lose the midterm and '08 elections....

No sooner did Congress authorize construction of a 700-mile fence on the U.S.-Mexico border last week than lawmakers rushed to approve separate legislation that ensures it will never be built, at least not as advertised, according to Republican lawmakers and immigration experts.

GOP leaders have singled out the fence as one of the primary accomplishments of the recently completed session. Many lawmakers plan to highlight their $1.2 billion down payment on its construction as they campaign in the weeks before the midterm elections.

But shortly before recessing late Friday, the House and Senate gave the Bush administration leeway to distribute the money to a combination of projects -- not just the physical barrier along the southern border. The funds may also be spent on roads, technology and "tactical infrastructure" to support the Department of Homeland Security's preferred option of a "virtual fence."

Most conservatives agreed that the fence bill that passed last week was a good first step toward actually securing the southern border with Mexico before starting to negotiate any disastrous amnesty program. Republicans finally appeared to be making some headway toward ameliorating the conservative base who desperately want secure borders. Then they pull this slight-of-hand and allot the money for all kinds of things and allow for a virtual fence.

The problem with a virtual fence is you get virtual security. The republicans have failed repeatedly to seriously advance a conservative agenda and they are about to experience the ire of the conservative base who would rather fight liberals in power than tolerate the disappointment of republicans who refuse to use their power to fix the country for the better. This fence is I think, the last straw. Republicans passed the fence in theory but in practice, it will probably never be built since Bush has allowed the money to be spent on all kinds of other things associated with homeland security.

I'm disappointed in both Bush and the republican controlled congress for a variety of reasons but I predict the failure to erect a fence and secure the border with Mexico will prove to have been the downfall of the republican majority in one or both houses of congress. Horrifyingly, it may also usher in the administration of one Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

I'm all for equality for women, but grabbing the buttocks of the opposite sex is a personal affrontery that should remain strictly in the domain of construction workers, lounge lizards, and Senators from Massacheusetts...A woman was charged Wednesday with sexual assault after an altercation with a flight attendant on an airplane flying from Charlotte, N.C., to London, an official said.Conan Bruce, a spokesman for the Federal Air Marshal Service in Washington, said the woman got into an argument with a male flight attendant aboard US Airways Flight 1494."During the altercation, she grabbed his buttocks," Bruce said.When the airplane landed at Gatwick Airport, Sussex police charged the woman with disrupting a flight and sexual assault, Bruce said. What's the world coming to? There are certain gender-specific, societal roles that should be respected. Women should not included themselves in literally every facet of the male world just to prove that they can. Allow me to offer a couple of helpful examples: barber shops and athletic supporters... There are no apron-strings in the barber shop. Women should stay out of barber shops unless employed there. If your son is too young to tell the barber what he wants, take him to SuperCuts. Do not hang around instructing the barber on how to cut your son's or husband's hair. The looks of pity on the other men's faces are unbearable. Women often wonder why it's so quiet in barber shops when there are like 10 guys in there...they stopped talking the second you walked in.

A woman should refrain from assisting the sporting-goods store employee to pick out her son's athletic supporter. If the boy is old enough to wear one, he's old enough to ask for help buying one. Just go browse the women's jogging outfits close by until he's finished.

Asking a guy out is fine. Offering to pay for dinner is fine. Playing sports is great. But leave a few traditional male practices to the men...grabbing rear ends is one of them.

They tease you with the promise of 72 virgins and then yank the rug out from under you with this...

Khameini: Don't masturbate during RamadanIran's supreme leader answers questions on masturbation and other topics on his websiteDeliberate masturbation during the month of Ramadan renders a fast invalid, Iranian Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Khameini has ruled.

In a later statement to the greater Muslim community, Khameini offered this clarification, "Go ahead and saw off the head of an infidel, slay an evil Jew, murder a nun, but whatever you do, do not masturbate during the holy observance of Ramadan. After all what good to the righteous Islamic Jihad is a blind terrorist with hairy palms?"

Zealot Fred Phelps and his followers at the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, have a bone to pick with Pennsylvania governor Rendell. Appallingly, he doesn't take their crazed rantings that God hates homosexuals, seriously. So what's a cult to do? Why they protest at the funerals in Pennsylvania of 5 Amish girls brutally murdered by a psychopath...

I picked this story up over at Right-Thinking...The controversial anti-homosexual Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., plans to stage a protest at the funerals of the five Amish girls executed in their Pennsylvania school, according to a flyer posted on the church's Web site.

The church is protesting the funerals because of the attendance of Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who has spoken out against the church publicly, the flyer says. Both Amish and non-Amish residents of Lancaster County, where the shooting took place, have vowed to not allow any protesters anywhere near the funeral services.

But the daughter of the church's pastor, Rev. Fred Phelps, told FOXNews.com on Wednesday the church would cancel the protests if given media time on radio and television as a platform to espouse for Westboro's beliefs.

"We're not going to any of the Amish funerals, that's the agreement we're making, that we won't go to any of them," Shirley Phelps-Roper told FOXNews.com.

Phelps-Roper defended the church's decision to protest at the Amish girls' funerals.

These people are vermin, and because their lives have less value to society than lab rats, they deserve to have scientific experiments performed on them. At least in that way they will have contributed something positive to the world...but that's just me.

Because Governor Rendell rightly refused to give them an audience, conservative radio talk-show host Mike Gallagher nobly negotiated to give them an hour of his air time to vent their grievances. In return they will leave the Amish community alone to grieve their losses without aggravation from them.

I applaud Gallagher for this heroic move but I can't imagine having to sit for an hour and listen to their nonsense...poor guy.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Why is it that whenever somebody gets caught behaving badly, they immediately check into rehab? They are not getting treated for addiction, they are hiding in shame from scrutiny. It is rare that any of these guys, the ones who didn't kill themselves, ever own up to what they are...

First look at this human-devil who killed the Amish girls; his excuses were in his suicide letters, "I molested relatives before". He said he was "filled with so much hate" and "unimaginable emptiness." He said he hated God because of his daughter who died at the age of 20 days.

OK, I get all that, but what connection does all that stuff have to do with executing more little girls? That...I don't get. If he thought God had it in for him before, wait 'till he has to face him now after this. Just come out and say, "I'm a pathalogically demented sicko and to escape the shame of facing up to what I did, I'm going to kill myself." We all know that anyway.

Then there's Mark Foley who blamed his pedopheliac intent on alcholism (alcohol doesn't cause pedophelia no matter how much you drink), molestation by a priest (What a cliche"! Why must everyone have been molested by a priest in order to excuse their bad behavior 20 years later?), emotional instability (Duh!), and then he announced he was gay (So what? We know he's gay because he behaved deviantly toward boys). It's like these guys use the shotgun approach to culpability absolution. "Surely if I was the victim of something in the past, they won't hold my crimes against me. I'll try every excuse there is and see which one they buy."

Just once I'd like to see a perp say immediately upon getting caught, "You got me. I'm a gay pedophile. It's what I do."

I would at least have respect for him for admitting what he is...total disgust in addition, yes...but at least respect for being honest.

UPDATE: Oct 4, 9:52 PM -- It looks like the democrats' October surprise is beginning to unravel already. Seems the person Foley was IM-ing from the House floor was 18 at the time and not a child. That still doesn't change the fact that he's a creepy, old, dirtbag and needs professional help, but the damage may yet be lessened when all the facts are revealed. Stupid democrats can't even manage to do a good hit job on a target as easy as Foley, and they want us to trust them to take out terrorists before they get us?

Seriously, this is the burning question facing the brightest minds science has to offer: Do obese people become obese because they are addicted to food, or do they become addicted to food because they are obese? Here's a snipit of an article I read regarding this issue...

Obese people may become addicted to food in a similar way that a drug addict is hooked onto drugs, says a new study that examined the brain scan of a few obese people.

And some scientists somewhere got scarce grant money to study this? By definition, drug addicts are already hooked on drugs. Besides what difference does it make if you're "addicted" to food? You're still going to have to exercise personal behavioral responsibility to stop eating 3 quarter-pounders with cheese for supper every night.

Let me explain this: we live in a consequence-free society where liberals tell us there are excuses, preferrably insurance-covered, medical ones, for any and all deviant behavior. There is a cabal composed of pharmaceutical manufacturers, willing physicians on the take, politicians eager to buy votes by absolving constituents' bad behavior and appearing to be concerned, and "patients" who are only too eager to seize the opportunity to blame somebody else for their self-destructive behavior.

If liberal doctors can take some health problem like obesity, tell the obese that it's not their fault, that they have a disorder and can't help it, then the drug companies get to sell a drug to combat it, the doctors create another base of insured patients, the obese get to not bear any personal responsibility for their behavior, and finally the liberal politicians get two birds for one stone...they can demonize and tax evil corporations(fast food) for victimizing citizens and tricking them into overeating, and, they get grateful fat people who will vote for them.

This is not an organized conspiracy, it's just how liberals operate, so it might as well be conspiratorial. To a liberal, there is no such thing as bad behavior, only politically advantageous excuses for bad behavior.

No one will rise up to defend a man who walks into an Amish school, lines young girls up against a blackboard, ties up their feet, and then kills them before killing himself. But a surprising number of people will inevitably rise up to defend his guns, to call the man guilty but his weapons innocent.

When Charles Roberts snapped, the tools lay ready to hand. It is not clear what led him to seek out a quiet country school in Lancaster County, Pa., but it is possible he chose it because he knew that it belonged to a trusting, insular community, where there would be no one to stop him from entering with a shotgun, a rifle and an automatic pistol.

This is the third school shooting in a week. What will stick in almost everyone's minds is the gross disparity between Mr. Roberts's murderous intentions and the bucolic peacefulness of an Amish school in early October. But this killing is no different from the ones that took place in Wisconsin and Colorado recently.

The weapons were the same, and so was the conflict between the hideous assault of a damaged mind and the atmosphere of openness and trust that makes education possible. There are no simple solutions to this conflict. It is neither possible nor tolerable to secure every school or guard every child. Nor is it possible or politically tolerable to keep tabs on every gun. But in these killings we see an open society threatened by the ubiquity of its weapons, in which one kind of freedom is allowed to trump all others. Most gun owners are respectable, law-abiding citizens. But that is no reason to acquit the guns.

Three school shootings in the same week is horrible but it's not the fault of guns, nor even the fault of the availability of guns, any more than Mark Foley's dirty e-mails can be blamed on the ubiquity of computers. Each and every time it's the fault of the shooter and nothing else. Predictably, sniveling liberals will use these recent shootings to once again call for gun control legislation. I wonder if the victims had their throats cut would liberals call for a ban on steak knives? If the victims had been garotted with cord would liberals call for a ban on clothes-lines?

"But Ed", you naively point out, "knives and cord have other uses that are not violent, guns are for only one thing...killing."

Silly reader...try protecting a school full of children from an armed maniac with some clothes line or a steak knife. In the hands of the law abiding citizen, guns are no more dangerous than knives or rope, but much more useful in an emergency.

Let me ask this question: what if a teacher in each school were allowed to carry a concealed weapon? Or even all teachers? I wonder how far these killers would get before they were dropped "dead" in their tracks. Extend that logic to communities. What if there were conceal/carry laws in every community? How many violent crimes would not even commence because the criminals would not know who had a weapon and who didn't?

Don't let sympathy and knee-jerk emotion cause you to allow the liberals to use this tragedy to push through legislation that further restricts your access to fire-arms for the protection of you and your family.

Just in case you people think I'm a lone, right-wing nutcase, go over to Right-Thinking and take a look at this post which came about an hour after mine on the idiotic, nanny-state, internet gambling bill that will be law soon...

The glaring failure of quasi-socialism in New Orleans over the past 20 years wasn't clear enough apparently, as Ray Nagin resists the advantages of the free market and insists on set-asides, race-based quotas, and affirmative action to rebuild the chocolate city in his own racist image...

By MICHELLE ROBERTSNEW ORLEANS (AP) - New Orleans' mayor signed an order Monday requiring that large businesses use as many local and minority-owned firms as possible when they seek millions of dollars in tax incentives and grants for Hurricane Katrina recovery.Mayor Ray Nagin's executive order requires applicants for the incentives to involve 50 percent local businesses and 35 percent women- or minority-controlled businesses whenever possible.A similar requirement has been in place for government contracts, but the mayor's order expands it to businesses applying for assistance promised by various federally funded recovery programs that are administered by the city and the state.

Sure Ray, don't let the business whose bid is the lowest get the job, guarantee tax-payer money to your minority friends who may bid millions higher than other white-owned businesses. Why shouldn't the minority businesses be efficient as well? Efficiency is the cornerstone of competitiveness in business. What he's saying is that if you can claim some sort of minority status, you don't have to be the low bidder in order to get the job. We will award it to you because of the color of your skin or the presence of a bra.

"We just want to make sure we don't go back to a city of haves and have-nots," Nagin said at a news conference. "This is imperative, not only for us but for our kids and grandkids."

Haves and have-nots? Ray Nagin and the democrats were in complete control of that entire city top to bottom for years leading up to Katrina. If there were any have-nots, and the local government can control that outcome as he now claims, whose fault was that?

In the immediate aftermath of the storm, many local firms complained that the main beneficiaries of large government contracts for emergency cleanup and recovery were out-of-state businesses and workers.

That's because the locals were used to being given no-bid business from Nagin because they were black and probably wanted more money for the work. The workers that came to NO to clean up were Mexicans. Say what you want about immigration, that's another matter, but Mexicans flatout work! Hard work was something most NO residents were unused to. They were unwilling to save themselves from a category 5 hurricane, why should they be willing to clean up after themselves?

It is encouraging that the businesses in NO are getting back on their feet in spite of Ray Nagin's insistence on minority preferences for his voting base. Capitalism and the pursuit of profit always trump preferences and quotas.

Just once, I would like for a disgraced congressman or senator who got caught behaving badly, to cop to something besides alcoholism and "behavioral problems" as an excuse.

In the letter faxed by Foley's attorney David Roth, to local media outlets in West Palm Beach, Florida Sunday night, Foley, R-Fla., says, "I strongly believe that I am an alcoholic and have accepted the need for immediate treatment for alcoholism and related behavioral problems," and "I deeply regret and accept full responsibility for the harm I have caused."The faxed note also says events related to sexually-charged emails to male Capitol Hill pages have "crystalized recognition of my longstanding significant alcohol and emotional difficulties," and he has arranged to receive immediate treatment at an in-patient facility.This sounds unsympathetic but what does alcoholism and emotional instability have to do with sending dirty messages to underaged, former congressional pages? I guess for a married congressman and father, admitting you're an emotionally unstable lush is more palatable than admitting that you're gay.

I'm not a gambler so this doesn't affect me personally but any loss of personal freedoms at the hands of compromised government officials is cause for concern whether or not you are personally restricted...

US President George W. Bush this week is expected to sign a bill making it harder to place bets on the Internet, a practice which already is illegal in the United States.Bush was expected to act quickly after Congress approved the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act making it illegal for financial institutions and credit card companies to process payments to settle Internet bets. It also created stiff penalties for online wagers.

Billions of dollars are wagered online each year and the United States is considered the biggest market.

"It is extraordinary how many American families have been touched by large losses from Internet gambling," said US Representative Jim Leach, the bill's main sponsor in the House, in a statement after its passage early Saturday.

The bill's chief Senate sponsor was conservative Republican Jon Kyl, who, like Leach, has said he believed Internet gambling was a moral threat. He has called online betting as the Internet version of crack cocaine.

Republicans tucked the measure into a bill aimed at enhancing port security, which passed early Saturday.

Here's where I have a significant departure from the current Republican Party...legislating morality. My problem is that it absolves the individual from having to exercise personal responsibility. If the measure is so strong and necessary for public protection, why "tuck" it into a sure to pass security bill? Why sneak it in under the radar on Saturday morning when nobody but a bunch of bloggers are paying attention? And, if gambling is so horrible, why is it practiced and condoned in one form or another in nearly every state in the country?

The bill's sponsors are Jon Kyl (R-Arizona) and Jim Leach (R-Iowa). A quick search of gambling in those two states reveals that Harrah's (a big casino developer) owns huge resort casinos in both states. Internet gambling is taking a lot of business away from casinos and you know Harrah's contributes big-time to PAC's of representatives in states where they want to do business, in return for legislation favorable to them. The obvious question is if gambling is so evil, why did these two guys allow casinos in their home states? Kind of hypocritical isn't it?

So it's not about morality, or addiction, or crime. It's about stroking deep-pocket constituencies. Bottom line: indebted congressmen can legislate anything their big-money contributors want under the pretense of protecting morality. And the individual voters have to live with another small loss of freedom all because some legislators have to do what their big donors demand. Sometimes I wish I was able to not care about politics, my blood pressure would certainly be lower. This kind of underhanded, freedom-robbing, tactic sickens me...expecially when it comes from my own party.